Montreal: This month’s U.K. budgetary provisions will have a highly adverse and immediate impact on Canadian coproduction. The new rules wipe out state-backed financing for TV production.
In effect as of April 17, the U.K. budget states only ‘films intended for theatrical release at the commercial cinema’ qualify as British films for purposes of sale and leaseback transactions with the resulting tax break. TV series and MOWs no longer qualify.

Montreal: Participation at MIPTV 2002 was down about 9% to 10,200 delegates, but the expanded Canada pavilion, sheltering 52 companies, was a hive of activity. Formats and factual programming were at the top in the genre rankings. Asian delegations returned and many in attendance sensed better market conditions are just around the corner.
But the ever-resilient and optimistic MIP troopers kept getting sideswiped by economic bombshells posing as news stories out of Germany, France and the U.K. Delegates from those countries were bowled over by business developments, and anybody doing business with them, which is mostly everybody, shared in the shock.

Vancouver: In his maiden speech as the newly installed chair of the CRTC, Charles Dalfen told 900 delegates at the 2002 Canadian Cable Television Association conference in Vancouver that the commission will step up its support for efforts to stamp out black-market satellite systems.
‘The black market is hurting us all,’ said Dalfen, ‘and threatens to draw away money from the Canadian broadcasting system as a whole through, for example, the depletion of the Canadian Television Fund, which is dependent on licensed distributors for half of its revenues. To the extent that new legislation may be required to limit the black market, we will lend our full support.’

Halifax-based Cochran Communications is ceasing operations and halting production after more than 12 years as an anchor of the East Coast production community.

With the U.S. Screen Actors Guild set to unilaterally impose its Global Rule One May 1, Canadian actors’ and producers’ representatives have seized this as an opportunity to take pot shots at each other.

At the CCTA conference in Vancouver, Rogers Communications CEO Ted Rogers got it right and Shaw Communications CEO Jim Shaw, surely to the dismay of his shareholders, got it wrong. Rogers urged tough action against illegal grey and black market DTH signal providers. Shaw, as reported in this issue, says let the consumers decide. If the intent was not clear, Shaw later went on TV and said cable’s (already relatively modest) Canadian programming contribution could be in jeopardy if the unregulated market share in this country continues to grow unchecked. And of course, that is exactly what is happening.

More cuts at AAC

In the April 15 issue of Playback (‘T.O. studios gear up, but will the go?’), The Comweb Group was mistakenly identified as Comcast.

Montreal: The Canadian completion bond industry has emerged from a major shakeup with one of three established suppliers, Motion Picture Bond Co., slated to wind down operations by midsummer. MPB has not signed any new business since the start of the new year.

Vancouver: British Columbia’s most critically acclaimed feature for 2001 was snubbed again by the Canadian industry – this time at home.

Although many in the broadcast community feel that all the hype about convergence a couple of years ago was just that, the subject was centre stage again at NAB2002, the annual meeting of the U.S. National Association of Broadcasters and the world’s largest electronic media show. The convention took place April 6-11 in Las Vegas.

Montreal: Each morning, by 5 a.m., cast and crew on the new Lea Pool feature film Blue Butterfly, about 100 people in all including locals, Brits and some 40 Canadians, leave their ocean-side hotel to travel deep into the Costa Rican rain forest. It’s an almost uninhabited place with three magnificient waterfalls. Once the crew arrives at Bri Bri, another very long day of shooting begins.